If you read the kinds of news feeds and websites I do, you can’t help but have come away with the breathless, panicky sense that the cyber world is collapsing in on itself as the result of what has been, so far, three unrelated technical glitches involving United Airlines, the New York Stock Exchange, and the Wall Street Journal.

While it may yet prove that some or all of these were attacks and that those attacks may have somehow been linked, it’s important to remember that nearly all of the rest of the unimaginable amalgam we call the internet is still working just fine. Attempts to label the glitches that have occurred miss the point that, even with the most widespread attacks that have so far occurred, most of the internet kept right on as it always had.

That’s not to say we shouldn’t all be vigilant, because we should, or that we should accept the explanations the various victims have put out that these aren’t attacks, because half the time they don’t even know they’ve been attacked until someone else points out they have, but rather to say that attacks on the internet are more like two armies trying to play capture the flag in a dismal swamp than cyber-themed nuclear holocaust.

It may yet turn out these were attacks, and the attacks may yet get worse, but more than likely, even if they do, it won’t be the end of things, and if it turns out to be, there will be no doubt it is.